Monitoring NFTs search patterns to see how the emergence of these smart contracts has affected the art and video gaming industry.
NFTs (non-fungible-tokens) have never been more searched than in 2021.
- Today, one French out of forth has heard of NFT.
- +400% search volume in the last 6 months.
NFTs? Cryptocurrencies? Blockchain ?
NFTs (non-fungible-tokens) have never been more searched than in 2021.
Assets favored by Neymar, Elon Musk, or Balenciaga. They are digital ownership certificate assets, not interchangeable, and are by nature non-fungible. NFTs are nowadays the object of passion, and their prices have sometimes reached high records. These digital media are part of the family of crypto-assets, just like the famous bitcoin. They are created and sold via a decentralized blockchain system.
They attest to the unique ownership of an asset through a blockchain. Therefore, their application has developed naturally in the art world, for which the title of ownership and the certificate of originality of the work are essential.
Works of art and additional content for video games top the list of possible purchases in this form. And for good reason: the under 35 years old (38%) are the ones who believe the most in this trend, which they feel will expand in value in the long run (compared with 25% for the average French person). In other words, these assets are gradually becoming more widespread among the younger population.
Today, let’s review what NFTs can change in the boiling fintech environment and how search listening can become a relevant tool to monitor emerging trends.
- Today, one French out of forth has heard of NFT.
- More than 80% are aware of cryptocurrencies.
- For young people, 41% have already invested in it or would be willing to do so.
- +400% search volume in the last 6 months.
NFTs
Non-fungible tokens or NFTs are cryptographic assets on a blockchain with unique identification codes and metadata that distinguish them from one another. Unlike crypto-currencies, they cannot be traded or exchanged for equivalence.
Cryptocurrency
A digital currency in which transactions are verified and records maintained by a decentralized system using cryptography, rather than by a centralized authority.
A brand new sandbox in gaming industry
In 2021, 20% of the funds raised by the video game sector went towards projects related to blockchain and NFT. Ubisoft is ahead of the game by supporting many projects with a dedicated team. We know that Sega, Xbox, and Electronic Arts are still working on it.
The most popular game based on NFT is presently the collection football card game Sorare. It is a fantasy football game where you can buy, trade, sell and manage virtual teams with digital card games. The game uses blockchain technology using Ethereum and was developed in 2018 by two french.
More than 2,5 million searches since September 2021
Then, Axie Infinity is an NFT-based online video game developed by Vietnamese studio SKyMavis, well known for its in-game economy which uses Ethereum. New players need to purchase at least three axes to begin playing. By December 2021, this starting cost was up to US$1,000.
436.000 searches in 2021
+450% in the last 6 months
A big statement by Ubisoft, the game industry’s leading representation, has jolted the industry. The international french firm had already said at the end of the year that they were about to add NFT in their game “Ghost Recon Breakpoint. Now, they achieved to raise 6 million dollars to develop their first game based on NFT technology: Dogami. Dogami presents itself as a play-to-earn game (a game where you can collect and work crypto and NFTs that can then be sold on the market) that reminds us a bit of “Nintendogs” back in the day with a dog breeding 3.0. Even if, for now, search volume is low for Dogami, it appears like a very promising project.
Dogami +250% growth rate in January 2021
How NFTs revolution the digital art market
The NFT system allows putting propriety right on digital objects. This right is written in a universal, sharable, and omniscient book: the blockchain. It listed all the transaction data made, has the particularity of being shared simultaneously with all its users, and does not depend on any central server, thus it is fast and secure.
With NFTs, the art market is boiling to organize new ways of selling art world, which guarantee the authenticity and uniqueness of digital works, and to the massive online migration of contemporary art auctions since the health crisis, these public sales will achieve a record of $2.7 billion in the 2020-2021 financial year (+117%).
NFTs already represent 2% of the global art market value. This digitalization also opened the demanding world of art to a new public, younger and more likely to have faith in digital products.
+800% of growth in the last six months
A trend very Parisian with an affinity twice as bigger in the capital than in the rest of France (volume of searches per 100.000 inhabitants)
With NFTs, the art market is boiling to organize new ways of selling works of art, which guarantee the authenticity and uniqueness of digital works, and to the massive online migration of contemporary art auctions since the health crisis, these public sales will achieve a record of $2.7 billion in the 2020-2021 financial year (+117%). NFTs already represent 2% of the global art market value. This digitalization also opened the demanding art world to a new public, younger and more likely to have faith in digital products.
With NFTs, the art market is boiling to organize new ways of selling works of art, which guarantee the authenticity and uniqueness of digital works, and to the massive online migration of contemporary art auctions since the health crisis, these public sales will achieve a record of $2.7 billion in the 2020-2021 financial year (+117%). NFTs already represent 2% of the global art market value. This digitalization also opened the demanding art world to a new public, younger and more likely to have faith in digital products.
Have we already reached a glass ceiling?
The emergence of NFTs has shaken many industries, we hear a lot about the impact on social media & press. However, we can already see that for NFTs in the gaming industry, search queries appear to be stable at roughly 350.000 searches per month, whereas art-related searches continue to explode and follow an exponential trend.
300.000 searches in January
700.000 searches in January
Paris: a capital city at the edge of new technology
Only Paris appears to have taken a keen interest in NFTs and cryptocurrencies in France. The French capital stands out from the rest of the country. In terms of affinity (volume of searches per 100.000 inhabitants), Paris ranks high with 1,031 affinities while the national mean turns around 440.
More than 1% of Parisians have formulated queries about NFTs
This is twice higher than the national average.
OpenSea, the NFT’s temple, in great progression
OpenSea is an American online non-fungible token marketplace headquartered in New York City. The company was founded by Devin Finzer and Alex Atallah in 2017. The platform is the main marketplace considering NFTs exchanges, rare digital items, and crypto collectibles. The platform is booming since this summer with
+1000% growth rate since last August
Regarding this impressive increase, OpenSea can become a true leader in the future promising NFT market. However, this impressive bump is not universal for every NFT platform. Other important marketplaces, especially Nifty Gateway, and Solanart already live a true decrease while the sector is boiling. Indeed, we monitored these art sell platforms a slight decline:
-30% of searches for Solanart in the last three months
-17% for Nifty Gateway in January
What about going further & monitor cryptocurrencies fluctuations
Cryptocurrencies’ values are by definition very fluctuant and unpredictable. Financial speculation is based on trying to foresee the coming trends. Search listening offers you a forecast of low signals emergence that can give you relevant clues about future expensive money
Interesting fact, the month of May 2021 has been a landmark for searches related to cryptocurrencies. Why? In terms of performance, May ends as one of the darkest months in the history of bitcoin. The data shows a monthly decline of 35.6%, a loss that represents the worst monthly performance for the crypto-currency since September 2011, when the loss was close to 40%. These bad performances must have intrigued many people and pushed a lot of actors to invest in them and so search about it!
As you can see on this chart, sometimes currencies are truly exploding but the hype decreases quickly after the explosion. Let’s catch the opportunity of seeing these signals before anyone else.
→ Drop of 70% for Shiba Inu in the last 4 months
→ Safemoon fall off from searches after may bump
→ Ethereum has remained fairly stable since May
For all these reasons, Trajaan can become your lighthouse in the dark to detect emerging currencies first and thus maximize your profits. What if search listening became an additional indicator for financial speculation?
